Amman, Jordan ? The war in Iraq was supposed to strengthen the minority in the Middle East who want to reform their political systems.

But in conversations with political liberals in Jordan, a kingdom more open than many Mideast regimes, I found these reformers reeling. One after another, they said that the Arab minority who want better and cleaner governments have been badly weakened by the Iraq war.

They told me this as Jordan prepares for long-delayed parliamentary elections. At traffic circles all over the city, simple cloth banners are strung up with slogans like “Freedom of expression is a gift,” “Islam is the answer,” and a simple “Vote for so and so.” There are no political parties allowed, only individual candidates, and the districts are gerrymandered to ensure that the majority of Jordanians who are of Palestinian origin get only a small percentage of the seats.

Everyone I spoke with hoped Jordan would evolve toward a fairer system. But they worried that the aftermath of the Iraq war — at least so far — was giving democracy a bad name.

Why so?

Partly, because the war’s aftermath has brought chaos and lawlessness to much of Iraq. Massive looting has destroyed swaths of Iraqi infrastructure under the eyes of U.S. troops — as broadcast by Arab television. Those Arab liberals who dared suggest that a surgical strike to eliminate Saddam might bring positive change to the region have been made to look foolish.

“When it comes to Iraq,” says George Hawatmeh, editor of Al Rai newspaper, “U.S. actions speak louder than words. It’s a fact the Americans overlooked the antiquities museum (which was looted) and guarded the oil ministry. It’s a fact they had no game plan for the day after. We liberals can’t say, ‘It’s OK’ what the Americans did after. They have to get their act together.”

What hurts the liberals most is that President Bush hyped the goal of Iraqi democracy but failed to stop the postwar destruction. In a belated effort to restore security, U.S. officials have announced they will delay turning over power to an Iraqi interim government and prolong U.S. occupation.

But this feeds the conspiracy theorists who argue that the war was a pretext to help Israel and grab Iraqi oil; some say the United States even encouraged the looters to ensure that Iraq would be quiescent under occupation. Arab liberals don’t make these wild claims. But they feel the Bush administration has cut them off at the knees by providing so much fodder for rumors.

“The issue gets turned away from political reform at home to how to get rid of the U.S. occupation in Iraq,” says Jordanian businessman Labib Kamhawi. “The U.S. occupation weakens liberals all over the Arab world and stirs up fundamentalists.”

Of course, the United States can still recover if it does get its act together in Iraq and helps a decent Iraqi government emerge. But Arab skepticism, even among those who want that outcome, now runs deep.

Any Iraqi government godfathered by the United States will likely be regarded by Arabs as a U.S. puppet; the United Nations role in the process that the Bush team just endorsed at the Security Council isn’t big enough to confer legitimacy on such a government.

Adnan Abu Odeh, a longtime adviser to the late King Hussein and advocate for political reform, says that reformers feel as though they are at a play waiting for the second act. In the first, Saddam was overthrown and America said it would reform the Iraqi system. But will it?

“People don’t trust the Americans,” Abu Odeh says. That’s also because President Bush has failed to follow through on promises to promote a Mideast “road map” toward peace between Israel and the Palestinians. There, too, he made grand references to the need for Palestinian democracy, which weren’t followed by concrete actions that pressed both sides to act on the road map. As that problem worsens, liberals say it also undercuts any Arab momentum for political reform.

What’s scary is that the word “democracy is losing its positive meaning in the region and coming to be seen as a code word for American imposition of its own interests. Soon Arab liberals may be afraid to say democracy’s name for fear of being labeled naifs or American stooges.

The Bush administration can still redeem the term by getting its act together in Iraq and on Mideast peace talks. But time is slipping. So far, the Iraq war has undercut the very Arab visionaries it allegedly meant to help.

— Trudy Rubin is a columnist and editorial-board member for the Philadelphia Inquirer. Her e-mail address is trubin@phillynews.com.